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miércoles, 23 de julio de 2014

Gaza, the Prophet and the Wall, a fiction

The prophet rested on the wall, dangling one leg towards the left, the other towards the right. His lips were dry as a waterless well, his skin caked and singed. Overhead the skies roared with fire and torment, bellowing, blazing and blaring. Babies and children wailed and bawled and shrieked, filling the air with wailing and whining and lamentations. Blood bathed physicians rushed to and fro dispairingly, searching for non-existent drugs as bombs cannonaded left and right. Blood besmeared mothers wailed and shrieked and rambled in the ruins of havoc, shambles and bloodspilling.

"Shoot!" shouts the officer. "Fire!" cries the fighter. The prophet takes a deep breath, gazing left and right. "Why? Why? Why? Why!" There was no answer."Why do men fall once and again into savage darkness? Why don't they understand that life thrives on love, not on hate?"

Far away those who spoke of peace counted the dollars they made from selling bullets and tanks and rockets. Those who pounded their chests and talked of democracy and human rights nodded in slumber in their bullet-proof bedrooms.

The prophet raised his legs and advanced zig-zag fashion along the wall, first in one direction, then in the other. Suddenly he stopped. Flowers of red, of blue and of the most diverse shades had won their way to the top of wall. He halted. "Flowers are older than men are," he remarked softly. "Before humans arrived there was surely a time when valleys and hills and river beds and even deserts were filled with the scents and colors of flowers." It was at that moment that he saw a tank sunk, submerged, engulfed and immobilized by a couch of wild flowers swaying softly in the wind. Slowly raising his body, the prophet inhaled the scent of the flowers and dried his tears.